


the way to the graveyard

by Maiden_of_the_Moon



Series: a return to eden [3]
Category: Bartimaeus - Jonathan Stroud
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Inspired by Music, M/M, Other, Religious Discussion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21765106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Maiden_of_the_Moon
Summary: Djinn are beings of fire, Kitty realizes anew; they leave naught but ash in their wake.
Relationships: Bartimaeus/Kitty Jones, Bartimaeus/Kitty Jones/Nathaniel, Bartimaeus/Nathaniel (Bartimaeus), Bartimaeus/Ptolemy (Bartimaeus), Kitty Jones/Nathaniel
Series: a return to eden [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568605
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	the way to the graveyard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lysandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysandra/gifts).



_Disclaimer:_ Nope.

 _Author’s Note:_ I’ve been listening to a lot of music while trying to sort through my #feelings. I dunno if it’s been helping or making things worse.

Anyway, this one goes out to tumblr user what-did-xerxes-say for making me feel like Bartimaeus fics are still something _someone_ wants to read. :’) 

PS. The use of “Turtle Dove” is an homage to a fanfic that [tumblr user floor19-blog1 wrote.](https://floor19-blog1.tumblr.com/post/35687323853/here-have-a-thing)

Enjoy your sad, pining djinni.

\---

the way to the graveyard 

\---

0) [“Just a Word for You” / Yoshihiro Ike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZH5yDaH0w)

_…I rather think he knew anyway._

\---

1) [“Wicked Games” / James Vincent McMorrow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUaRPpnsfb4)

“Do you love me?” 

He considers, the chaotic flame of his life-light guttering behind his eyes. They are blue today. A familiar, intelligent blue, and far too old for his face. 

“Yes,” he says, the answer simple. Too simple. Kitty suspects she is being belittled, and glares. Like his eyes, her frown is familiar, and intelligent, and far too old for her face.

“Are you _in_ love with me?” she rephrases, irritated that she must clarify the question. Though it’s her own fault, really; spirits are notorious for their exploitation of loopholes, and Kitty knew who she was taking to bed. 

She knows who he is.

She knows who he is not.

Bartimaeus turns fully from the window at this, his guise’s dark, cropped hair framed by a backdrop of summer rain. The world beyond him seems a dream, a static haze of gray; together they hang in temporal suspension, as if in mocking, monochrome homage to their time in the Other Place. 

Shadows of tears run soundlessly down the far wall. 

“Are _you_ in love with me?” he asks, in the flat tones of someone already sure of the answer. 

Kitty glowers at rumpled blankets, her anger and perpetual stubbornness at war with her commitment to honesty. Petulance deepens the furrows in her brow. 

“I love you,” she grumbles, picking at the pilling of her quilt. 

The djinni leans back. His pale skin is distressingly waxen. _A candle snuffed too early_ , Kitty thinks, unbidden, of the one Bartimaeus is _not._

Bartimaeus, meanwhile, is smoothing his puppet’s hair. “But?” he prompts, unimpressed. Unoffended. 

Kitty refuses to give him the satisfaction. 

They relapse into silence. They sit in it. Stew in it. It is not as unusual as one might assume; they do quite a bit in silence, now Kitty thinks about it. Funny, really, how quiet they both can be when there’s no one to fight with. No one to rage at, or about.

Bartimaeus has returned his attention to the window. There is nothing of particular interest to see beyond its dirty panes, but Kitty suspects his gaze does not go that far. The dreary day dulls, transmuting itself into a drearier twilight. 

Then, with the transience of an evening cloud—

“I could try.” 

It is an idea. An offer, made without promise. Kitty looks up, bemused. 

“While you’re still here,” the djinni expounds, wrapping long arms around his torso. He pauses, considering his reflection. In the mirror of the glass, his eyes are twin collapsars: empty and endless. He closes them, weary. “ _Because_ you’re still here.” 

Kitty nods, knowing that he cannot see her.

Knowing that he knows her answer, anyway.

\---

2) [“Turtle Dove” / Ralph Vaughan Williams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO8phVJHlyg&t=53s)

“ _Fare you well, my dear, I must be gone,  
and leave you for a while.  
If I roam away I'll come back again,  
though I roam ten thousand miles, my dear,  
though I roam ten thousand miles._” 

Kitty stares at the tenebrous expanse of the ceiling, somewhere half-between sleep and wistful wakefulness. Motes of dust become twirling stars when they drift through her line of vision; the cracks in the plaster, the lines which connect ever-shifting constellations. Despite the protests of her nose, her senses tell her that she smells cooling sands, and hard clay, and the dampness of a silty shore; she believes she hears the whisper of reeds, muted but melodious, in the same way that she might believe a fairytale. 

Bartimaeus lies beside her, perhaps sharing in Kitty’s dreams. 

Perhaps not. 

His hands are beautiful enigmas beneath a shroud of gossamer night, the sun-kissed fingers conducting everything and nothing. Consonants curl at their discretion; there is a harmonious lilt, a quiet crescendo. A gesture— longing, reaching— penetrates a shaft of moonlight, such that its silvery resplendence drips down his slender wrist. It is pallid, and cool, and mercurial; it seeps into his flesh, until the djinni becomes much the same. 

Pallid. Cool. Mercurial. 

The air ages, gaining the weight of over two thousand years of death and progress in a matter of moments. Kitty’s reverie is polluted now, stained with city lights and iridescent petrol. A twining miasma of mass-harvested herbs and chalk powder and leather-bound books and loneliness teases at her amygdala. 

The lullaby does the same. 

“ _O yonder doth sit that little turtle dove.  
He doth sit on yonder high tree_,” Bartimaeus sings, still staring at the back of Nathaniel’s outstretched hand. “ _A making a moan for the loss of his love,  
as I will do for thee, my dear…_”

For reasons known only to himself, the djinni wills a lichen to eat its way across that hand— like a fungus, like a cancer—, like the arm does not belong to a man, but instead to a statue still unfinished in the park. The thought encourages Kitty, who has spent precious little time contemplating “forever,” to attempt doing so: to think about a tomorrow after a tomorrow after a tomorrow after a tomorrow, until the end of time, except that there _is_ no end, just more tomorrows, continuous tomorrows, unrelenting, inviolable. The crushing reality renders memorials that have of yet not even been conceived to cinders in a mind that has already seen untold civilizations come, go, and be forgotten by history.

Djinn are beings of fire, Kitty realizes anew; they leave naught but ash in their wake.

“… _as I will do for thee._ ” 

Bartimaeus’ fist falls. The mold climbs. 

Kitty feels ill.

\---

3) [“Graveyard” / Hasley](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_nNsBP00mo)

“What is it about names, anyway? What makes them so powerful?” 

“A name is an acknowledgement of being. Of individualism, or lack thereof. It is a single word used to encompass, describe, and contain all that a creature is, all that they were or yet might be. That’s the whole point of having language, isn’t it? To stick labels onto things, so that others are able to understand it, to use it. To abuse it, given half the chance.” 

Kitty considers this, needlessly rearranging the lilies that she had placed upon the ground. Their petals make the snow seem sallow. 

“‘Encompass, describe, contain,’” she repeats, chewing on her cheek as much as the dogma. “‘All they were or might be.’ I suppose I can follow that. But it still strikes me as a bit… I don’t know. ‘Arbitrary’ isn’t quite right. That’s not what I’m trying to say.” 

Bartimaeus has opted for Ptolemy’s form, today. It isn’t difficult to guess why, given where they are. Neither have any desire to draw a crowd, much less to start rumors of ghosts. 

“I looked up ‘Kathleen,’” Kitty tells him, presumably in an effort to share what she _is_ trying to say. Hoarfrost is melting beneath her knees, its wet chill seeping through her jeans. “The name. It means ‘pure.’ I don’t think that particularly… ‘encompasses’ me. Nor describes anything.” 

“No? You don’t think it was your pure— if somewhat misguided— intentions that encouraged me and Nat to be the best versions of ourselves?” the djinni contends, just wryly enough for Kitty to suspect he’s being honest. In a sort of round-about way, at least. 

She considers, brushing a bit of snow from the marker before her. 

“Do you know what ‘Bartimaeus’ means?”

“‘Awe-inspiring,’ I expect,” Bartimaeus flippantly rejoins, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his long, black coat. He leans back on his heels. The dark of his attire, of his skin, is at odds with their surroundings; in his own way, he rebels against the great winter expanse of the cemetery. “Or ‘splendiferous,’ or ‘worthy of great admiration and praise,’ or something to that effect.” 

“Actually,” Kitty drawls, “it means ‘son of Timaeus.’ But _Timaeus_ means ‘to honor,’ so I guess you’re not _entirely_ wrong.” She pauses. Cocks her head. The silver in her hair shines, redolent of rime. “Then again, sometimes it’s translated as ‘son of the unclean.’” 

“What?!” 

The woman smirks, feeling from behind her the intensity of the djinni’s pout. Predictable histrionics serve to distract, if but for a minute, from the intensity of a different emotion, one that beats with remorseless butterfly wings within the cage of her chest. 

Kitty wets her lips, thinking again: _All that they were or yet might be._

“But. But, more than that… The most famous Bartimaeus— yes, of course, _obviously_ besides _you,_ ” she sighs, eyes rolling, “was an old, blind beggar— oh, shut up for a moment, _listen_ — was an old, blind beggar whose faith— whose _trust_ — saves him.”

The djinni’s whining fades. 

“Also,” Kitty tacks on, just because she can, “ _he_ spoke to Jesus. Which is at _least_ as interesting as speaking to Solomon. So.” 

Pastel gray clouds trundle over a pastel gray sky. The pastel gray fields roll into a pastel gray distance, and Bartimaeus looks to the pastel gray horizon, even as his foot nudges forward. 

“…what about _him_ , then?” 

Kitty glances sidelong at the tombstone, pale and plain and simply engraved. A single name. 

She chuckles, mirthless. “‘God has given.’”

The irony is not lost on Bartimaeus. Rather, he scoffs, making a show of offense at the joke’s poor taste.

“Yeah, well,” the djinni drones. “He did a good job living up to that. (1)”

\---

4) [“Kanashimi (Sadness) ver. 1” / Yasuharu Takanashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAKdwvMxoOw)

“ _So fair thou art, my bonny lass,  
so deep in love am I.  
But I never will prove false to the bonny lass I love,  
till the stars fall from the sky, my dear.  
Till the stars fall from the sky._” 

There is the promise of summer in the breeze, the fading of florals and the foreshadowing of heat. The blue above is dizzying in its infiniteness, a magnificent horror imitated by the djinni’s void-deep eyes. 

His summoner recoils, tries to hide it. The tremble of his hat’s wide brim gives him away.

“…thank you,” Bartimaeus says, bowing his head a respectful fraction. Then he looks up and adds— far less respectfully—, “You know, with those peppery streaks, your hair is now a perfect match for your skin. You’re like a gothic candy cane. Or a men’s catalogue that melted in the rain.”

The man frowns. It does not seem to be in response to the jab. 

“While you’re here,” Bartimaeus’ reluctant master ventures, with a quaver in his voice that is only partly due to nerves, “would you like to… I don’t know… Kitty’s will only made mention of her funeral, but—”

“Dismiss me.” 

The djinni’s fingertips skim the curve of the necropolis’ newest headstone. Like the older memorial beside it, its marble is pale, and plain, and simply engraved. Fresh flowers have been lain atop both modest plots: small and vivid blue, dotted with a thousand golden eyes. 

A gentle breeze ripples the grasses. The forget-me-nots shiver. Djinn are beings of fire; they love as the flame does the forest. Without anything left to consume, Bartimaeus’ voice is hollow, his demands softer than ash. 

“ _Dismiss me._ ” 

Jakob Hyrnek need not be told a third time.

\---

5) [“Kanashimi (Sadness) ver. 3” / Yasuharu Takanashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5LFP3dTxog)

Once, many millennia ago, Bartimaeus told a girl he loved that a single word might be used to encompass, describe, and contain all that a creature is, all that they were or yet might be. And that word, he said, was a name.

It was not a lie. 

It was not the truth.

The single word, the djinni decides, that might best encompass, describe, and contain all that he is, all that he was, all that he yet might have been, is not “Bartimaeus,” but “regret.” 

He regrets that he could not save Ptolemy. 

He regrets that he could not do more for Kitty. 

He regrets that he could not love Nathaniel until it was too late, regrets that even now he and the boy are mostly defined by ‘what-if’s and ‘what-could-have-been’s. He regrets that he can only assume, can only hope, can only _trust_ , that the boy knew, in the end. 

Oh. And he regrets that he must die, of course. 

“‘What God has given,’” the djinni mutters to himself as his battered essence crumbles into astral— into flecks of gold and stardust— because it’s better to go out on a laugh than a tear, in his not-so-humble opinion. 

And hey, if the true nature of the inside joke is lost on anyone listening, no bother; the irony of a ‘demon’ quoting the Bible would certainly suffice.

-

-

-

_“Bartimaeus was an old, blind beggar,” he again hears her say, the conversation returning to the forefront of his mind with a feeling not unlike that of dispersion. In the same instant, he remembers and forgets, as if his memories are being drained out of him and reabsorbed into some other place. “An old, blind beggar whose faith— whose_ trust _— saves him.”_

-

-

-

0) [“Just a Word for You” / Yoshihiro Ike](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXZH5yDaH0w)

“It’s you.”

It is a lovely garden, he observes. Thin and long, with borders framed by a rose-webbed brick wall. Rhododendron bushes bob over yon, their stained-glass flowers dappled in dew. Lichen glows green on an ancient bench, while apple trees shed blossoms that are as diaphanous as sunlight. 

It is an ethereal sort of scene, almost phantasmagoric, but less due to the landscape and more to present company. 

He blinks.

There, betwixt a pencil pouch and a stack of drawings, sits a little boy with a sketchpad. Pages rustle when he moves, their reunion watched by countless graphite eyes: gargoyles, buffalos, birds, serpents, smogs; a young teen in a loincloth, a girl with slightly exaggerated proportions.

From where they sit in the boughs of an overgrown horse chestnut tree, incarnated echoes of these latter portraits look up, startled into silence.

Only the little boy seems able to speak. 

“It’s you,” he says again, his face a masterwork of pinks: surprise, satisfaction, tenderness, passion. Unadulterated joy. “The one who loves me.” 

It is hardly a name. Not a very good title, either, nor remotely pithy enough to pass as an endearment. And yet, despite this, never before has any designation encompassed, described, or contained him so well.

_All that we are or yet might be._

Standing before the little boy, he reaches out, and smiles, and burns brighter than a supernova. 

“Yes.”

\---

**Author's Note:**

> (1) Job 1:21: The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away.


End file.
